About this book

Natural resources and services provided by ecosystems are getting more and more limited while the demand for land, water and ecosystem services is globally growing (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Therefore, the old style of land use planning driven by opportunity and short lived interests is no longer a valid option. Instead, knowledge based decision making shall allow to combine prosperous development with sustainable use of resources and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems. To support this goal, the project “The Future Okavango” has been developed within the frame of a global program on “Land management” (LaMa) established by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in 2010.

The main body of this Special Volume is dedicated to a series of sixteen research articles. These are again sorted in a series starting with aspects of the landscape, followed by climate, hydrology, the importance of water for ecosystems and livelihoods, agricultural yield assessments, the role of soil bacteria and phosphate and soil fertility, recent land use change, floodplain vegetation, riparian tree species, fire regime, livelihood diversification, household economies, land utilization strategies, and customary water law.

Contents

Table of ContentsPages 1–6

Editorials

How can scientific information on the Okavango Region be made useful for decision making? - An integrated compilation of the first products of the project "The Future Okavango"Norbert JürgensPages 7–8